Chrono Cross: Star Stealing Girl (basically complete)

[TheLeviathan]

Hey guys, I started this a couple months ago. This is a Star Stealing Girl arrangement in an ethnic orchestral style. I am pretty satisfied with it at the moment, but figured I'd post it here before submitting it to the panel in case there was anything to tighten up. Also, "Frozen Stars" in not the final name of the song, and I am having a hard time coming up with a good one. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Link: http://global-trance.com/TheLeviathan_-_Frozen_Stars16.mp3 (Thanks for hosting G-T)

[Rozovian]

This is beautiful. What bothers me is the shehnai or whatever it is, it's pretty rude, really. I like its sound, but it feels too rude for the first part, something softer might work better there.

The slow attack of some strings also bothers me a bit, I dunno if that's from necessity, samples, or if it just happened, but I'd give them some more attack. Unless it doesn't sound better.

Second section feels a bit cheesy with the screams, but here the shehnai fits in better. Third section is just pretty, tho the interlude with more screams sounds ridiculous.

This is a beautiful piece. It's got some of the sensibilities of Destiny's works, and some that must be your own. I don't see why the judges would reject this.

btw, on the second listen, the shehnai doesn't bother me as much anymore. No wait, when it repeats, it does.

As for the name, Frozen Stars is a beautiful name. Any suggestions I could come up with would tie those two together into "tear" and use that somehow. Good luck figuring something out.

[avaris]

This is pretty solid dude. But some of the mixing and mastering could use some TLC.

For instance when the sections are goin what is the sound that is out in front? It'sthe reverb off of everything. The background elements are louder than the melody. Since the melody has much less reverb than the background elements it makes the spacing feel very off. :59 is a good example. That high lead just sticks out really bad.

I agree about screams. Although in some part they are good. 3:27 those would suite much better in the background. 1:37 is nice though. Def a way to pay tribute to that part of the source.

From an arrangement perspective the songs has 3 apparent sections, but I don't see how the song progresses through the sections. Really try to take another listen and remember to concentrate the flow of the song. The parts that go up and the parts that go down.

:28 that lower flute, it sounds it has the same playing style over and over. It starts to sound extremely fake.

3:08 that piano sounds forced and sequenced. It also sticks out in front of all of the other elements in the song. Bring the volume down and work on varying the velocities, and slightly change the timing just to give it a human element.

The ending needs work. 4:05 a quarter note for the last note in the song. It seems like you set that part up to be very climactic and it just isn't executed as well as it could be. You got the big drums before and things kinda die out without ever really giving the song a proper climax and ending.

There are lots of little things that feel off, especially in the mixing/levels. Try take step away from the track for about a week. Get your ears fresh and then really go back with a fine tooth.

This is easily one of my favorite source tunes of all time. Thank you for taking the time to make a remix in this style as the source totally calls for it. Good luck dude!

[Tuned Logic]

Man, this is really nice. Very relaxing. I think the second half could benefit from a very light drum beat, but of course, I love drums

I really like the violin; keep it up!

[Chickenwarlord]

Frigid Starlight

Into the Skies

The World Below

Solar Penance

[Catullus]

Star Stealing Girl is one my favorite songs, I obsess over this song from time to time. That said your mix is definitely interesting and I do like it. I think it would be a good addition to this site. As for names IDK really, the first impression I got of your mix was slightly celtic which may be related to mitsuda's own influence of celtic music. But that said the part that comes in that sounds like celtic bagpipes at :38 sounds too midi'ish it would be nice if you got some real sounding bagpipes in at that part and could real send this song to the top since the rest of the instruments sound reallly nice.

Anyway I figure ill throw some suggestions out there.

Star Stealing Girl has always struck me as a hopeful, yet yearning song as if you are missing something greatly but with only a slightly melancholy tone to it. Maybe even an undertone of pining to it.

"Reaching for the Stars"

"Starlight Nostalgia"

"A starlit lake's refraction"

"Melancholy Celtic Skies"

Maybe the ideas I just threw out there suck or maybe it will give you an idea of your own, either way I tried

[TheLeviathan]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I haven't made any changes yet, but I will soon. As for the title, I think I've settled on Stars Frozen in Time. I'll try to make some fixes and post an update by the end of the week.

[Geneson]

Tough luck on the judges' decision, is there anyway the public can still hear this?

[darkmaster987]

Yeah, I'm gonna have a little rant here....sorry if it offends anyone, I really don't mean to. Everyone here does a great job, but....

WHY is it that the judges' decision section never lets you listen to the actual mix? It seems horribly elitist, almost to the point of saying "you don't have a right to listen to anything unless we say you can".

In fact, I remain convinced that the judges each have their own little stash of remixes, knowing that the public will never hear them, that they secretly like alot but rejected on the grounds of music theory or some other technicality even though they sound good.

It's always been something that's pissed me off about OCRemix, ever since I started visiting. Is there really something so wrong with letting people listen to things and make their own minds up rather than dictating whether or not they have the right to based solely on your personal opinions? the fact that some proportion judges say "yes" to something is proof enough that a similar proportion of the public would enjoy it, so why deny them that? You don't have to host it on your own bandwidth, just let people see the link to the song.

[Rozovian]

...no link, unless explicitly stated in the submission mail, because OCR can't go around handing out links to ppl's private hosts (those that use their own private hosts), and some people don't want their rejected remixes to circulate the net when they've just been given some feedback on how to improve it (aka the decisions). See this thread.

I know I wouldn't want one of my unfinished remix touring the net and making me infamous for some lame production problem that wuld ahve been easily fixed after the Js' would have pointed it out.

OCR is what it is because OCR has got its standards. There's Thasauce.net that does a less extensive "quality control" so that obvious flaws, non-remixes, stuff like that are filtered out, and vgmix didn't filter the remixes at all (when the site was working properly). OCR is looking for complete, arranged, and well produced remixes, and the Js filter out those that don't meet the standard. You don't have to like it, but if you have a look at some random remixes posted on youtube, you'll find that there are a lot of lazy, trivial, and flawed works there. OCR has this WIP board and judges that'll critique people's remixes SO THAT THEY CAN BE IMPROVED.

I mean, what do you prefer: unfinished or finished works?

Rants don't belong in the WIP forum, tho. Keep 'em in Community or wherever.

[Ramaniscence]

Yeah, I'm gonna have a little rant here....sorry if it offends anyone, I really don't mean to. Everyone here does a great job, but....

WHY is it that the judges' decision section never lets you listen to the actual mix? It seems horribly elitist, almost to the point of saying "you don't have a right to listen to anything unless we say you can".

In fact, I remain convinced that the judges each have their own little stash of remixes, knowing that the public will never hear them, that they secretly like alot but rejected on the grounds of music theory or some other technicality even though they sound good.

It's always been something that's pissed me off about OCRemix, ever since I started visiting. Is there really something so wrong with letting people listen to things and make their own minds up rather than dictating whether or not they have the right to based solely on your personal opinions? the fact that some proportion judges say "yes" to something is proof enough that a similar proportion of the public would enjoy it, so why deny them that? You don't have to host it on your own bandwidth, just let people see the link to the song.

As Rovozian said, stuff like this is precisely why I made ReMix:ThaSauce. OCReMix is looking for a pretty specific kind of remix. Granted you have a good amount of a freedom, you have a LOT of specific (subjective) criteria you have to meet.

That doesn't mean the songs are BAD or no one deserves to hear them, that just means they don't fall within the standards for what makes an "OCReMix" which is more than what most people would consider "just being a good song."

OCR is what OCR is because that's how they chose to be. That's what's always worked for them, and that's what they're going to continue doing. There's no use getting upset, and bent out of shape about it, because it's not changing, and that's COOOL, because there are other options out there. They're just not nearly as well known.

[Catullus]

honestly the fact that it was rejected by the judges annoys me greatly. I still have the track on my computer and listen to it when that star stealing girl urge arises.

The only thing that needs work is the bagpipe sample and I think I mentioned it before, everything else is very well done and that definitely includes the chanting. The chanting is a small part of what makes this mix special. They were all up in arms about it in the judges panel like it ruined the song.

I guess they think they are so knowledgeable about music that if its not exactly how they would do it, its not good enough to be on this site.

Well newsflash... this mix is easily better than 80% of whats on this site, maybe more. Also like Liontamer said this is much in the spirit of Yasunori Mitsuda himself would have done were he to remix the track... THIS DEFINITELY INCLUDES THE CHANTING. Lots of his tracks have chanting in them.

Well they win, its not on the site at the moment and it will be a travesty if it the chanting gets taken out when/if its resubmitted.

Also I wonder when Big Giant Circles realizes that he comes off as a majorly arrogant jerk when he writes crap like this.

" Guys, may I reitterate that those chants are not just bad, they're downright awful."

and

" Also, Larry, If I write a really stellar track, but record a 19 second series of flatulence in the middle, is that passable? :P"

I think that pretty much sums up why the judge panels fails. Also built in spell checking is hard am i rite?

[Rozovian]

If you're not happy with how the site is run, make a thread in the new Site Issues & Feedback. Let's not hijack this wip thread for this debate anymore.

[Palpable]

WHY is it that the judges' decision section never lets you listen to the actual mix? It seems horribly elitist, almost to the point of saying "you don't have a right to listen to anything unless we say you can".

In fact, I remain convinced that the judges each have their own little stash of remixes, knowing that the public will never hear them, that they secretly like alot but rejected on the grounds of music theory or some other technicality even though they sound good.

As mentioned, we take out the link by default because we don't want people to get pissed that we linked to their private space or that everyone gets to see the song they want to fix up. If the remixer specifies that they want the link to stay, we keep it.

I do keep a stash of rejected remixes! It's the stuff that I really liked, but either didn't meet the standards or didn't pass even though I said YES. I've even mentioned in decisions that I'm keeping the song. One of the perks of the job.

[darkmaster987]

I do keep a stash of rejected remixes! It's the stuff that I really liked, but either didn't meet the standards or didn't pass even though I said YES. I've even mentioned in decisions that I'm keeping the song. One of the perks of the job.

/me is sad.

Would you perhaps consider sharing them sometime? It's one of the things that always bothered me about the stringent process here; the mixes that all the judges say are good, get through, the rest are just...gone.

Sometimes I just want something that sounds good, without really caring about technicalities or standards. There's several old files from VGMix I still have and like, which I watched crash and burn here, often on technicalities.

Until the assholes admins over at VGmix stop taunting us with "O hai, we have all the old remixes.....BUT WE'RE NOT GONNA GIVE EM TO YOU, HA HA HA HA HA!!!1!1", this is really the only place on the Internet to find VGM remixes. Often there are tunes I'd like to hear remixed or arranged, but can't, because none of them were considered good enough by the judges here. I know it's (allegedly) in the interests of quality, but as a listener, I'd much rather have one, medium-quality remix of a song than none at all.

[TheLeviathan]

I totally didn't realize there were all these new posts after this got rejected. Rama, I was talking to F4T4L about maybe submitting this to R:TS, so I still might.

Also, thanks for the support everybody else. I might try to fix this up and give it a resub.

I don't have the link to the version I submitted to the panel because G-T is hosting it, and I forgot to save the link. I was thinking about having them leave the link up if it was rejected, but then didn't end up doing it. The version I subbed had some fixes that some people mentioned including replacing the monkey-ish sounding chants at the end. Too bad they still didn't like the chants at all.

I'll post the link in a day or so when I can get a hold of G-T.